“Track One:” Keep The Light On

I never wanted a fortress. I just wanted a home. To put my worries and failures, and make them not alone. 

This has become my routine. 

Lock up the yard. Secure this compound I’ve found myself living in.

Repeat these words over and over again. 

Day after day.  

Look for a hand reaching out, thought everybody knows- to keep the light on. 

But no one ever comes. 

And there are certainly no other lights on. Not in my area anyway.

So I finish my routine. 

Lock the gates, light the lamps on the porch, and bolt myself inside this house. Still desperate to keep the wrong ones out…

…Still holding out hope that the right ones might see the light on and try to make their way in. Try to make their way to me. 

WINTER

First, it was the lockdown. 

Then there was the pillaging. 

Then there was the turn. 

Humankind ran all over each other long before the zombies even learned to crawl. When my friend Alice and I got out of the city, it didn’t take long to discover there was no cure for what was taking over every upright, mentally aware person left on the planet. There was a vaccine. But scientists couldn’t reproduce it fast enough. The disease was changing too quickly… and the scientists weren’t excluded from being targeted by the walking disease.

I lost Alice shortly after we took over this house. 

In the end, after everything we’d been through, it wasn’t even a zombie that got her. 

It was one of our own.

We hadn’t established our plan of attack. We hadn’t even unpacked what little we still had with us. We had no rules, no way of securing the house- 

For once, Alice and I were unprepared.

Then ransackers came in. 

And Alice was taken. 

I got away, but my friend was gone.

I was alone again, and this time, it really was at the end of the world.

The first thing I did when I got back to the house was arm it. Reinforce it. When we still had the van and the CB, there had been secret queues traded online amongst those we thought we could trust. One of which, was leaving a light on. 

One solitary light on the front left of your porch. 

It was a sign that yours was a safe house, a sign to invite the right ones in. 

The good ones.

The ones you’d be willing to start this world over with again. So I made sure I had a way to leave that light on. 

If Alice taught me anything, it’s that I didn’t want to be alone forever after all. 

So I worked, and I gathered, and I lived. For her.

And for me.  

And I waited with that light on.

The days went on and on like that. The nights the same.

Same routine. 

Same hope.

Same outcome. 

(Nothingness).

Nothing changed. 

Zombies resurfaced. Stupid and slow. Easy to pick off. It was honestly like swatting flies at this point. Which they also brought plenty of. 

No one ever talks about that in the movies about the dead. Decaying flesh always has flies on it… but what, Zombies are moving soooo fast that flies can’t keep up with their rotting stench? Of course they could!

Ugh.

Yeah. I know. 

I’m worried about me too. 

I’ve been alone for a long time. 

Until one day… when I wasn’t. 

One day- a gorgeous day, actually… he arrived. 

SPRING

It was perfectly calm and sunny all day. And at night- it was crisp after the rain came. The scent was perfect. Lavender mixed with the scent of damp grass, and it filled the front porch of my house.

I locked up, lit the light, and sat on my porch in the quiet, like I always did. Soaking in the sounds of the night and the peace-

“-Uh, hey there.”

I shot up out of my seat. 

Holy hell, what the actual fuck.

Then I turned and found a tall, handsome man creeping around the side of my house.

“Uh. Hello.” I stammered. (Half-fear, half-swoon to be honest). 

“Sorry. I’ve been on my own for a while. I think I forgot how to be social.” He said. And with that, I could identify. Heavily. “In fact, I tried to stay on my own, but this quirky guy weaseled his way into hanging out with me.” 

Was he a mirror image of me? 

Have I hallucinated a man?

He continued talking. “But, then he got eaten. So now I’m alone again. Which is actually kind of a bummer.”

Okay. His story is my story.

He’s also hot. 

He’s (probably?) single…

This man at the end of the world is my gift for surviving. I was certain of it.

I smiled at him. “I was just about to make dinner… hungry?”

SUMMER

The next two months were like a montage from Shrek, except we were falling in love to good music and not the questionable sounds of covers performed by Smash Mouth. (Yes, even the faults of past pop culture icons will follow a career into the apocalypse.)

His name was Guy (which was unfortunate), but he was handsome, and charming and honestly, his teeth were still freakishly perfect. That’s another thing they don’t cover in books and movies during the early years of an apocalypse. Why doesn’t anyone talk about plaque build-up? Or the issues with finding new toothbrushes and packs of dental floss? I’d honestly consider giving my pinky for a teeth cleaning from an actual dental hygienist at this point.

So yes, he was handsome, charming, great teeth- great hair… a ten. I found a ten at the end of the world, and we were living in a love montage. 

“You know,” I said to Guy one day, “for next summer, if we plant enough in the spring, we won’t even have to ration for the two of us.”

“Uh- right. Next summer.” He said. 

I smiled at him, looking up at his tall, broad shoulders, completely doe-eyed. “It’ll be perfect.”

And he smiled back at me with those freakishly perfect teeth. 

Life at the end of the world, was turning out to be kind of perfect. 

The days went on like this. The two of us being perfectly happy, perfectly in sync… I made plans, he smiled and said yes. And we kept moving forward. 

I supposed that’s why I never saw it coming. 

AUTUMN

The world had changed, Autumn used to be longer, but now, the snow was falling sooner and sooner each year. Fall had turned into a two-week rush of gathering necessities before the first snow fell. 

Just as quickly as Autumn arrived, Guy had departed right along with it. 

No reason.

No note. 

Just- gone. (With his toothbrush. Obviously.)

Ghosted. At the end of the world. 

I was blinded- blindsided, really.

By his good looks, and those freakishly good teeth.

I should have known it was coming because it was a shit day-

Perfectly calm and sunny and crispy. 

Just like the day he arrived. 

The dick had to go and ruin sunny days for me, too? 

I won’t keep beating myself up ‘Cause you never called- not that he could call per say, mobiles haven’t operated for years… 

During the end of the world, guess you were better off… It’s his relationship issues, to be honest. If he thinks he’s better off alone during the actual apocalypse… then good for him. Because I won’t settle either. 

But I know better to be a better friend of me… At least Alice taught me that much. I’ll keep the light on.

Inspired by the first and last lyrics of the song “keep the Light on” By Kayleigh Goldsworthy